Archive for November, 2014
Guest Post: 5 Ways for Your Church to Reach College Students
Today, RonnieFloyd.com welcomes guest bloggers Dr. Nick Floyd and Noe Garcia. Nick is a Teaching Pastor at Cross Church, and Noe is College Pastor at Cross Church’s Fayetteville Campus.
We love the opportunity to do ministry in a college town. Our church is located 5 minutes away from the University of Arkansas, which is home to around 26,000 students. God has opened the door for us to reach hundreds of college students on a weekly basis. For almost four years, we have intentionally made an investment of sowing the gospel with this large group of people. Here are five ways that we have seen God use our church to reach college students.
- Unashamedly evangelistic. We are constantly confronting students with the reality of their sin and the grace of Jesus Christ. We have met them on their turf, having a constant presence on the campus that is led by our students. Each week at our college Bible study, we give people an opportunity to respond to Jesus. By His grace, we regularly see lives changed.
- Intentional with relationships. We wholeheartedly hold to the principle that ministry is all about people. Our college staff is rarely in the office because they are constantly out meeting one-on-one with students. Allow opportunities for college students to build relationships with one another, with church staff, and with others in the church. Small groups for students have been a priority for us and will always continue to be.
- Willing to let them own the ministry. In Scriptural terms, this is simply a call to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. We have seen that when we help students find their gifting and help them to see how that plays into the Kingdom of God, future leaders are born. It is our goal to send these students out into their future local churches as leaders from the day they arrive.
- Focused on multi-generational mentorship. Whether you believe it or not, college students crave mentorship and discipleship from older believers. It is a constant task for us to keep up with the number of students who are requesting to be mentored by someone in the church. We have made a conscious effort to place them into the life of the church and not separate them as their own congregation. We want them sitting next to a 70 year-old one service and holding a one year-old during the next service in the nursery. We want them to hear about being a parent or grandparent, not only applications to life as a college student. We feel this has been extremely valuable.
- Prayer. Honestly, you can take the other four and throw them out the window. Prayer has been the foundation of everything we have seen take place. For 28 years, Pastor Floyd has prayed that Cross Church would be able to reach the University of Arkansas and other local campuses. Prayer has been a focus within the ministry, even enlisting college students to lead our college prayer team. God can do more through prayer than we can by action.
By no means are we experts on college ministry. Most of the time, it feels like we are simply riding the wave of God’s activity rather than being good at ministry. We are amazed each week at what God has chosen to do. We hope the above principles can help you and your church reach college students in your city.
Nick Floyd Noe Garcia
Teaching Pastor, Cross Church College Pastor, Cross Church
@nickfloyd8 @ngarcia0802
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.
Pornography: The Secret Assassin
Sin is most powerful in the darkness. Sin’s power to operate in secret has destroyed many followers of Jesus. Open sin can be confronted, rebuked, challenged and repented. Secret sin eats away like acid on skin. Jesus warned us the most dangerous things to us come from inside ourselves (Matthew 15:16-20).
Sin is most powerful when secret
Sin is most powerful when unknown, and few sins among Christians are more destructive in secret than pornography. In Bible Studies for Life, Chip Ingram writes, “13 percent of all web searches are related to erotic content [and] almost 9 out of 10 young men (85 percent) and almost half of young women (48 percent) report viewing pornography.”1
More troubling than the overall data is that related to followers of Jesus: 50 percent of men and 20 percent of Christian women regularly view pornography. Too many from the body of Christ are being eaten up from the inside by this secret sin. Marriages are suffering. Husbands do not love their wives as they should. Wives are looking for pleasure apart from their husbands. Single adults are allowing pornography to substitute for actual relationships rather than remaining mentally pure. Seven of 10 teens have accidentally been exposed to pornography online.2 This exposure could permanently affect their ability to have deep relationships. It could torpedo marriages before the “I do’s” are even spoken.
Pornography wounds not just you, but others
As bad as those things are, pornography does not only affect the person consuming it. Pornography is “like shrapnel [which] will damage and wound those around us.”3
The Old Testament hero of the faith, Job, recognized the need for purity saying, “I have made a covenant with my eyes. How then could I look at a young woman?”4 The Apostle Paul instructed us, “For this is God’s will, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality, so that each of you knows how to control his own body in sanctification and honor, not with lustful desires, like the Gentiles who don’t know God.”5
Mental and physical sexual purity are required by God. Physical impurity is always preceded by mental sin.
Pornography can be overcome
Victory over pornographic use or pornographic addiction should begin with the spiritual root. All sin is a result of wanting selfish desires rather than God’s desires. Sin is a not merely an unwise choice or unhealthy decision. Sin is the replacement of God’s authority with our own. This is why all sin, including the viewing of pornography, must be repented.
Followers of Jesus must use the word of God to combat the temptation to indulge in viewing pornography. The power of God’s Word is the power to overcome sin, any sin. Reading it, meditating on it, memorizing it, and internalizing it lead to victory over sin. The work of the Spirit in the power of the Word is the power Jesus’ followers need to overcome temptation.
He has not left his people defenseless against sin and temptation. The allure of pornography and the damage that comes from it can be overcome in the power of God’s Word.
Saturate your life in every way with God’s Word. Be filled with the Spirit at all times. The Word and the Spirit together will lead you to overcome pornography.
Yours for the Great Commission,
Ronnie W. Floyd
Senior Pastor, Cross Church
General Editor, Bible Studies for Life
President, Southern Baptist Convention
1– Bibles Studies for Life, Ready, Chip Ingram quoting “Pornography Statistics” (2014 edition), [cited 13 May 2014]. Available at www.covenanteyes.com.
2– Ibid.
3– Ibid.
4– Job 31:1 (HCSB)
5– 1 Thessalonians 4:3-5 (HCSB)
Dr. Ronnie Floyd is the President & CEO of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee.